By George!

Sherlock Holmes is back on the case. So why does the clever private eye remain so popular years after his creator's death? Sherlock clues

Published: Sunday, July 24, 2005 at 3:44 p.m.

Last Modified: Saturday, July 23, 2005 at 11:00 p.m.

s it worth your while to read pastiche papers, or should a true Sherlockian stick with The Canon?

Facts

n The Canon refers to the set of 60 original stories (56 short stories, four novels) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Any book written by another author, while still being a Holmes story, is considered outside the canon.

Almost all were narrated by Dr. Watson, with the exception of two narrated by Holmes and two more written in the third person. The stories first appeared in magazine serialization, notably in The Strand, over a period of 40 years.

Serialization was a common form of publication in those days. Charles Dickens wrote in a similar fashion. The stories cover a period from around 1878 up to 1903, with a final case in 1914.

In the UK and Canada, the stories now are out of copyright. In the United States, those published after 1919 are still protected by copyright.

At least three major new Sherlock Holmes novels are on bookshelves now, none, obviously, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon ("Wonder Boys," "The Adventures of Cavalier and Clay") offers a very senior Holmes working one last case in "The Final Solution: A Story of Detection." The slim book follows Chabon's fascination with pop culture. His Pulitzer-winning "Cavalier and Clay" revolved around a duo much like the creators of the Superman and Batman comics. Chabon also co-wrote the screenplay for "Spider-Man 2."

Mitch Cullin's "A Slight Trick of the Mind" also takes up the detective in his dotage. Culllin's book already is in the works as a film by Focus Features, the literary-minded group behind "The Ice Storm," "American Splendor," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "The Door in the Floor."

Another novelist comfortable with Holmes' times is Caleb Carr, although his books "The Alienist" and "The Angel of Darkness" were set in turn of the 20th century New York City, not Holmes' London.

His Holmes novel "The Italian Secretary" is narrated, like most of Conan Doyle's tales, by Dr. Watson. It's suggested as being recently discovered from a locked cache of similar stories, buried for their national security implications.

But Holmes' prominence is nothing new.

"Some fairly high-profile individuals have tackled Holmes pastiche," said Charles Prepolec of The Singular Society of the Baker Street Dozen, based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Pastiche is what fans call tales not from/sConan Doyle's 56 stories and four novels.

Among those who have followed the footprints over the years include Stephen King, John Dickson Carr, Isaac Asimov, Nicholas Meyer and even John Lennon.

"The unusual element is that the new spate are producing novels, while short stories have generally been the case with high-profile writers in the past," Prepolec said.

Carr's book grew from a short-story collection titled "The Ghosts of Sherlock Holmes," due out next year. "Italian Secretary" started as a short, but grew into a stand-alone novel about Holmes and Watson tackling a ghost story from the time of Bloody Mary and a plot against Queen Victoria.

There's less obvious provenance for the Chabon and Cullin books, but Sherlockians theorize it could be because the character has entered public domain, and thus is fair game; or because publishers want to piggyback on Laurie R. King's Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell books and the popular PBS series that ran from 1984-1995, starring Jeremy Brett.

"It's true that there were very few Sherlockian pastiches before [Meyer's] 'The Seven-Per-Cent Solution,' " released as a novel in 1975 and made into a film of the same name in 1976, said Lee Shackleford, playwright in residence at UAB. His play "Holmes & Watson" has been produced off-Broadway and in the Magic City.

"The result is that much of what's written in the Sherlockian world is dreadful." But, he added, writers the caliber of Carr, Chabon and Cullin suggest something more than Sherlock schlock.

Perhaps it's because, more than a century after his birth in print, the consulting detective with the fastidious and peculiar style continues to fascinate writers as well as readers.

No Shinola, Sherlock

Beginning in the late 1800s, Conan Doyle wrote and had published 56 short stories and four novels, most of which appeared first in serialized form in The Strand magazine. In America, they were brought out in Collier's and Harper's Weekly.

They were so popular that even though the author killed Sherlock -- in "The Final Problem" -- hoping to devote more time to his historical novels, fan demand brought him back.

Conan Doyle held off for eight long years, finally writing the novel "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1901), but setting it before the detective's "death." Fans were not satisfied. Two years later, Conan Doyle revived Holmes with a tale that related how archrival Moriarty died alone in the plunge from Reichenbach Falls, atop which the pair had fought.

The author continued to write Holmes tales for another 25 years.

His son Adrian Conan Doyle contracted with John Dickson Carr to co-write another series of Holmes stories, based on those referred to in his father's works, but not made explicit. They appeared in Collier's from 1952-53, and were collected in a book titled "The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes" in 1954.

Meyer's "Seven-Per-Cent Solution" revived literary interest. But all along, Sherlock remained a favorite in stage, film, radio and television.

In fact, Holmes is the most frequently filmed fictional character in the movies, with about 200 appearances, topping Dracula and Tarzan.

There have been more than 750 English radio adaptations and numerous TV productions including the acclaimed Granada Television adaptations with Brett that ran on PBS.

Numerous plays, a musical and a ballet have been written based around Sherlock Holmes.

The character is so firmly imbedded in the public consciousness that a silhouetted deerstalker hat and pipe -- an image from the movies, not Conan Doyle -- is as instantly recognizable as a Playboy bunny.

To call someone "Sherlock" is too suggest a know-it-all, as in the sarcastic phrase that can only be paraphrased here as "No shinola, Sherlock."

In addition to the name writers who have taken up the cloak and dagger, pastiches by amateurs can be found all over the Internet.

"Pastiches -- tales featuring the master, but not from the Canon -- have been written ever since Conan Doyle -- or Watson, if you hold that Doyle was merely Watson's literary agent -- put up his pen," said Bob Crispen of Gadsden, a member of the Wandering Gipsies of Grimpen Mire, admirers of Sherlock.

"The key to pastiches is fun. Waston is often considered -- but never by Holmes himself -- as not much of a doctor, so one pastiche began with Watson noting in a matter-of-fact manner, 'I'd just returned home from the funeral of my last patient when ...' "

Conan Doyle himself wrote what could be considered pastiche, in his "The Field Bazaar" and "The Lost Special," being as they poke fun at his creations, Crispen said.

Young fans

Many people think the PBS series helped turn on a new generation of Holmes fans, but other 1980s events contributed, including the 100th anniversary of the first publication of Sherlock's debut, "A Study in Scarlet." Films such as "The Great Mouse Detective," "Young Sherlock Holmes" and "Without a Clue" extended the legend.

Laurie R. King's series of novels, about Mary Russell, who partners with Holmes, may have brought some new fans. And media coverage in the past few years focused on a huge auction of Conan Doyle's papers last spring in the United Kingdom and a bizarre death.

Many were fascinated by the Holmes-worthy mystery of Richard Lancelyn Green, a Sherlock scholar and collector who was found alone in his apartment in March 2004, garroted to death, strangled with a shoelace that had been tightened by a wooden spoon.

Murder was suspected, but police later ruled it an elaborate suicide, mirroring the plot of one of Conan Doyle's last stories, "The Problem of Thor Bridge."

That tale lead, in a roundabout way, to an episode of "CSI" titled "Who Killed Sherlock Holmes?" last January, Prepolec said.

But it's difficult in 2005 to encourage young readers, said Richard Green, a member of the Birmingham-based Genius Loci, a group that meets monthly to discuss Sherlock Holmes stories, films and radio programs.

Still, Green inspired his 11-year-old son Joshua, who has put on a couple of Holmes plays for reading series and a vacation Bible school.

"I got into Sherlock when I was a boy, around 14, by reading 'The Hound of the Baskervilles,'" Green said.

Later, he became a collector of the original Colliers and Harper's editions, movie posters, playbills, comic strips and more. The Genius Loci meets to not/sonly discuss stories, but to view Green's collection, watch movies and more.

Although the group has been around since the early '80s - and is sanctioned by the New York-based Baker Street Irregulars, named for the children Holmes employed as runners and informants -- it still finds the detective's tales meaty enough to return to again and again.

"My fascination, I guess, is more about the time period," Green said. "I get a little bored with some of the characters that come out of modern writers."

Other than minor opium and cocaine habits -- drugs that were at the time over-the-counter -- Sherlock is a thoroughly admirable hero.

"He was very intelligent, a sharp dresser, not so much a ladies' man, although ladies looked up to him," Green said.

"He was just a man's man."

Readers will stick with a character after his author's demise, as long as the succeeding writers stay within parameters, said Nancy Pack, director of the Tuscaloosa Public Library.

"If they like how the authors continue with the character's development, they'll read it," she said.

The originals still hold their magic. Pack noted that she avidly watched the PBS Sherlock Holmes series, and even though she knew the stories well, thoroughly enjoyed them again.

"We find a lot of patrons come in who may have read a series of books five or six years ago, and want to re-read them again," she said.

If the new novels aren't enough novelty, Sherlockians can Google enough pastiches to last them through next winter, Crispen said. And because most of the Conan Doyle stories and novels are now in public domain, many Web sites contain full texts.

"The pastiches are all good fun, but there's something about the original that keeps us coming back to 'that nostalgic country of the mind where it is always 1895,'" he said.

"I have always thought that the continuing popularity of Holmes is largely thanks to our deep-rooted desire to feel that someone, somewhere has all the answers," Shackleford said.

"So even after all these years, it's still thrilling to read these stories in which the frustrated police, the terrified victims, and our dogged narrator are all stumped . until Sherlock Holmes smiles his mysterious half-smile and languidly announces that the truth is obvious to him.

"Then he turns the darkness to light, virtue is rewarded and evil punished, and everyone involved admits that the solution was, after all, elementary."

<p>s it worth your while to read pastiche papers, or should a true Sherlockian stick with The Canon?</p><!-- Nothing to do. The paragraph has already been output --><p>At least three major new Sherlock Holmes novels are on bookshelves now, none, obviously, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.</p><p>Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon ("Wonder Boys," "The Adventures of Cavalier and Clay") offers a very senior Holmes working one last case in "The Final Solution: A Story of Detection." The slim book follows Chabon's fascination with pop culture. His Pulitzer-winning "Cavalier and Clay" revolved around a duo much like the creators of the Superman and Batman comics. Chabon also co-wrote the screenplay for "Spider-Man 2."</p><p>Mitch Cullin's "A Slight Trick of the Mind" also takes up the detective in his dotage. Culllin's book already is in the works as a film by Focus Features, the literary-minded group behind "The Ice Storm," "American Splendor," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "The Door in the Floor."</p><p>Another novelist comfortable with Holmes' times is Caleb Carr, although his books "The Alienist" and "The Angel of Darkness" were set in turn of the 20th century New York City, not Holmes' London.</p><p>His Holmes novel "The Italian Secretary" is narrated, like most of Conan Doyle's tales, by Dr. Watson. It's suggested as being recently discovered from a locked cache of similar stories, buried for their national security implications.</p><p>But Holmes' prominence is nothing new.</p><p>"Some fairly high-profile individuals have tackled Holmes pastiche," said Charles Prepolec of The Singular Society of the Baker Street Dozen, based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.</p><p>Pastiche is what fans call tales not from/sConan Doyle's 56 stories and four novels.</p><p>Among those who have followed the footprints over the years include Stephen King, John Dickson Carr, Isaac Asimov, Nicholas Meyer and even John Lennon.</p><p>"The unusual element is that the new spate are producing novels, while short stories have generally been the case with high-profile writers in the past," Prepolec said.</p><p>Carr's book grew from a short-story collection titled "The Ghosts of Sherlock Holmes," due out next year. "Italian Secretary" started as a short, but grew into a stand-alone novel about Holmes and Watson tackling a ghost story from the time of Bloody Mary and a plot against Queen Victoria.</p><p>There's less obvious provenance for the Chabon and Cullin books, but Sherlockians theorize it could be because the character has entered public domain, and thus is fair game; or because publishers want to piggyback on Laurie R. King's Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell books and the popular PBS series that ran from 1984-1995, starring Jeremy Brett.</p><p>"It's true that there were very few Sherlockian pastiches before [Meyer's] 'The Seven-Per-Cent Solution,' " released as a novel in 1975 and made into a film of the same name in 1976, said Lee Shackleford, playwright in residence at UAB. His play "Holmes & Watson" has been produced off-Broadway and in the Magic City.</p><p>Sherlock in public domain suggests the possibility of lowered standards, Shackleford said, "a sort of vultures-swooping-on-the-carcas effect."</p><p>"The result is that much of what's written in the Sherlockian world is dreadful." But, he added, writers the caliber of Carr, Chabon and Cullin suggest something more than Sherlock schlock.</p><p>Perhaps it's because, more than a century after his birth in print, the consulting detective with the fastidious and peculiar style continues to fascinate writers as well as readers.</p><p>No Shinola, Sherlock</p><p>Beginning in the late 1800s, Conan Doyle wrote and had published 56 short stories and four novels, most of which appeared first in serialized form in The Strand magazine. In America, they were brought out in Collier's and Harper's Weekly.</p><p>They were so popular that even though the author killed Sherlock -- in "The Final Problem" -- hoping to devote more time to his historical novels, fan demand brought him back.</p><p>Conan Doyle held off for eight long years, finally writing the novel "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1901), but setting it before the detective's "death." Fans were not satisfied. Two years later, Conan Doyle revived Holmes with a tale that related how archrival Moriarty died alone in the plunge from Reichenbach Falls, atop which the pair had fought.</p><p>The author continued to write Holmes tales for another 25 years.</p><p>His son Adrian Conan Doyle contracted with John Dickson Carr to co-write another series of Holmes stories, based on those referred to in his father's works, but not made explicit. They appeared in Collier's from 1952-53, and were collected in a book titled "The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes" in 1954.</p><p>Meyer's "Seven-Per-Cent Solution" revived literary interest. But all along, Sherlock remained a favorite in stage, film, radio and television.</p><p>"The Universal Sherlock Holmes" (1995) by Ronald B. DeWaal lists more than 25,000 Holmes-related productions and products.</p><p>In fact, Holmes is the most frequently filmed fictional character in the movies, with about 200 appearances, topping Dracula and Tarzan.</p><p>There have been more than 750 English radio adaptations and numerous TV productions including the acclaimed Granada Television adaptations with Brett that ran on PBS.</p><p>Numerous plays, a musical and a ballet have been written based around Sherlock Holmes.</p><p>The character is so firmly imbedded in the public consciousness that a silhouetted deerstalker hat and pipe -- an image from the movies, not Conan Doyle -- is as instantly recognizable as a Playboy bunny.</p><p>To call someone "Sherlock" is too suggest a know-it-all, as in the sarcastic phrase that can only be paraphrased here as "No shinola, Sherlock."</p><p>In addition to the name writers who have taken up the cloak and dagger, pastiches by amateurs can be found all over the Internet.</p><p>"Pastiches -- tales featuring the master, but not from the Canon -- have been written ever since Conan Doyle -- or Watson, if you hold that Doyle was merely Watson's literary agent -- put up his pen," said Bob Crispen of Gadsden, a member of the Wandering Gipsies of Grimpen Mire, admirers of Sherlock.</p><p>"The key to pastiches is fun. Waston is often considered -- but never by Holmes himself -- as not much of a doctor, so one pastiche began with Watson noting in a matter-of-fact manner, 'I'd just returned home from the funeral of my last patient when ...' "</p><p>Conan Doyle himself wrote what could be considered pastiche, in his "The Field Bazaar" and "The Lost Special," being as they poke fun at his creations, Crispen said.</p><p>Young fans</p><p>Many people think the PBS series helped turn on a new generation of Holmes fans, but other 1980s events contributed, including the 100th anniversary of the first publication of Sherlock's debut, "A Study in Scarlet." Films such as "The Great Mouse Detective," "Young Sherlock Holmes" and "Without a Clue" extended the legend.</p><p>Laurie R. King's series of novels, about Mary Russell, who partners with Holmes, may have brought some new fans. And media coverage in the past few years focused on a huge auction of Conan Doyle's papers last spring in the United Kingdom and a bizarre death.</p><p>Many were fascinated by the Holmes-worthy mystery of Richard Lancelyn Green, a Sherlock scholar and collector who was found alone in his apartment in March 2004, garroted to death, strangled with a shoelace that had been tightened by a wooden spoon.</p><p>Murder was suspected, but police later ruled it an elaborate suicide, mirroring the plot of one of Conan Doyle's last stories, "The Problem of Thor Bridge."</p><p>That tale lead, in a roundabout way, to an episode of "CSI" titled "Who Killed Sherlock Holmes?" last January, Prepolec said.</p><p>But it's difficult in 2005 to encourage young readers, said Richard Green, a member of the Birmingham-based Genius Loci, a group that meets monthly to discuss Sherlock Holmes stories, films and radio programs.</p><p>Still, Green inspired his 11-year-old son Joshua, who has put on a couple of Holmes plays for reading series and a vacation Bible school.</p><p>"I got into Sherlock when I was a boy, around 14, by reading 'The Hound of the Baskervilles,'" Green said.</p><p>Later, he became a collector of the original Colliers and Harper's editions, movie posters, playbills, comic strips and more. The Genius Loci meets to not/sonly discuss stories, but to view Green's collection, watch movies and more.</p><p>Although the group has been around since the early '80s - and is sanctioned by the New York-based Baker Street Irregulars, named for the children Holmes employed as runners and informants -- it still finds the detective's tales meaty enough to return to again and again.</p><p>"My fascination, I guess, is more about the time period," Green said. "I get a little bored with some of the characters that come out of modern writers."</p><p>Other than minor opium and cocaine habits -- drugs that were at the time over-the-counter -- Sherlock is a thoroughly admirable hero.</p><p>"He was very intelligent, a sharp dresser, not so much a ladies' man, although ladies looked up to him," Green said.</p><p>"He was just a man's man."</p><p>Readers will stick with a character after his author's demise, as long as the succeeding writers stay within parameters, said Nancy Pack, director of the Tuscaloosa Public Library.</p><p>"If they like how the authors continue with the character's development, they'll read it," she said.</p><p>The originals still hold their magic. Pack noted that she avidly watched the PBS Sherlock Holmes series, and even though she knew the stories well, thoroughly enjoyed them again.</p><p>"We find a lot of patrons come in who may have read a series of books five or six years ago, and want to re-read them again," she said.</p><p>If the new novels aren't enough novelty, Sherlockians can Google enough pastiches to last them through next winter, Crispen said. And because most of the Conan Doyle stories and novels are now in public domain, many Web sites contain full texts.</p><p>"The pastiches are all good fun, but there's something about the original that keeps us coming back to 'that nostalgic country of the mind where it is always 1895,'" he said.</p><p>"I have always thought that the continuing popularity of Holmes is largely thanks to our deep-rooted desire to feel that someone, somewhere has all the answers," Shackleford said.</p><p>"So even after all these years, it's still thrilling to read these stories in which the frustrated police, the terrified victims, and our dogged narrator are all stumped . until Sherlock Holmes smiles his mysterious half-smile and languidly announces that the truth is obvious to him.</p><p>"Then he turns the darkness to light, virtue is rewarded and evil punished, and everyone involved admits that the solution was, after all, elementary."</p>